Song is for the start of the chapter!

All too quickly I found myself walking into Langley the next day. I pulled on my shirt as I told myself that I deserved working here just as much as they deserved it. I said these words more often then I would care to admit but yet I still felt like they weren't real.

I was so tired of putting up this facade but people would never stop talking about me until I was perfect or did something fantastic. Until now, that had not happened, I was just Annalise Phillips that some how got missions that people wanted and somehow still made mistakes. Currently, I would not reach anyone's expectations. I was not like my parents who seemed to do everything right. I was sure that was why Gram had kept her distance from me. I shook my head, not wanting to linger on those thoughts.

As I walked onto my floor I noticed that everyone was busy. I walked passed Auggie's office to see that he was typing on the computer with passion. He looked lost in his own world as I stepped in to his office space. "Auggie, what's going on?" I asked as I leaned my thin frame against his door frame.

"Flight testing," he said, not even looking at me, his eyes still on the computer.

Realization flooded through me. I should have known this. We do this every year after my birthday. Flight testing was that one time a year where we tested all communications with our bases all over the world. The whole test took about a week and everyone works over time because something always seemed to go wrong during the time.

"By the way, your grandma wanted to see you like five minutes ago," he said, not missing a beat with his typing.

I frowned, I had been over this with him. If there was an ASAP moment, he needed to text me about it. At least then I could prepare for her wrath.

He stopped typing and looked at me with a smile. "Relax, I'm messing with you, she just said to tell you to go up to her office when I saw you."

With a nod, left him to go to my grandmother's office. There, waiting for me in my grandmother's large office was Toby and my Grandmother. They talked quickly to one another as if they were in such a deep conversation, so deep that they didn't seem notice as I walked in.

This wasn't something new though, I was so used to being forgotten or looked over. I wasn't the all star team member, like Toby, so I expected it. Sometimes I wondered if my grandmother wished Toby was her grandson instead of me.

Silently, I closed the door behind me and cleared my throat loud enough that they would hear me.

Suddenly, their privet conversation was cut short, falling like leaves to the ground. Gram looked at me with a small smile. "Oh Annalise, good, you're here. I was just telling Toby that you two are going on a mission together."

I smiled widely as excitement rose in me. I haven't had a mission in months; it was about time for me out get out of this office. I tried to control my excitement but clearly it wasn't working. "Where too? Africa? Europe? Asia? I'm there," I said, a little too eagerly.

"No, I'm just sending you to New York city," she said and smiled widely, like this was the best news I have heard all week long.

"Fun. Alright," I said, clearly let down a bit. However I still excited to please my grandmother. That was all I shot for, every time I went to work, I just wanted to make her proud.

"You leave today at three. As you know, we're running our yearly flight testing and New York City is having problems with their communication. So I thought the two of you would be a good choice to send. Annalise, you have years of knowledge and experience with flight testing and I want you to show Toby the ropes," Gram said as she handed me a folder.

I took it and quickly flipped through the paperwork as she continued to tell me details about how long I was going to stay and what she expected of me. After she was finished, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see that it was 8:30 AM. I still had time to get my bag together. "I'll get packing," I said and turned around to walk out of the room.

"So I'll pick you up?" Toby asked as he walked out with me.

I smiled lightly. "Yeah sure." As if I could tell him no. I felt nerves get the best of me as I looked at his blue eyes. This would be the first mission that we would do together. This mission was going to test how well we worked together.

"I'll pick you up at 1:00," he said with a smile then kissed my cheek and walked away.

With a spring to my step, I walked to my cubical then quickly logged off of my computer. Looking down the hall, I had a clear view of Auggie's office so I waved him goodbye to Auggie.

He caught my wave and held up a finger, signaling me to wait. So I did even though I had no idea what he would want from me. Within a few seconds, he walked over to me with a smile.

"You're going to New York?" he asked even though it didn't sound much like a question.

By now I was used to him knowing so many kinds of information. I nodded.

He handed me a bag of sour gummy worms. "For your trip."

I smiled. He knew me too well. "My guilty pleasure while traveling."

He shrugged as he tried to play it off as not a big deal. And maybe it wasn't to him, but for me it was. I don't think I had any one in my life that knew me like this. "Had some in my desk."

I hugged him tightly. "What would I do without you, Auggie?"

He pulled out of the hug and shooed me off with his hand. "Be snackless, I guess. Now go. I'll see you when you get back."

I nodded at him. Auggie had been with me through thick or thin. No matter what rumors were around me, he never seemed to mind. He had always been there for me when I needed someone. I think that was why Toby was jealous of him. "See you." I waved to him then walked to the elevator.

By time I was home and packed, it wasn't much later that Toby came to my door. I quickly let him in as I turned off the TV that I had been watching to pass the time until he arrived. I couldn't remember the last time I turned the TV on. I often didn't have time for such things.

He smiled at me, "did I just catch you slacking?" He joked as I put the remote back by the TV.

"Please, I do it all the time. Just don't tell my grandma that," I said, playing into his joke.

He laughed, harder than I had heard in a long time.

It was enjoyable to hear. Just like it was nice to hear birds on a summer day. I liked this light side of Toby so I decided to go more into the conversation. "What do you think I do at my desk when my headphones are in? I listen to class lectures for school," I said half joking.

He wiped a tear of laughter from his eye. "Why am I not surprised?"

I shrugged. I had to find some way to do all of my responsibilities.

With a sigh he said, "well, are you ready?" Suddenly, the serious Toby was back again and it was time for work.

I nodded as I grabbed my weekend bag. "Let's go."

With that we left for the airport, driving in record speeds. Honestly, I don't think Toby even noticed he was speeding. It was clear that something was still on his mind and I couldn't figure out what it was. "It's fine, it's just flight testing. I'll be there every step of the way to help," I said, sure that he was stressed about that.

He nodded at me as he intertwined his fingers with mine. "Thanks," he sighed as he parked the car to get to the small airport. "How did I get so lucky with you?"

I shrugged with a smirk. "The stars were in your favor."

He kissed my hand. Suddenly, his distant eyes were present again. "You're truly amazing."

And I believed every word of that. With that small moment, he made me feel like I was enough.

In a matter of an hour I found myself in New York City, exciting the plane with Toby on my heals. I put my sunglasses on and looked around for some person that was here to pick us up. Sure enough, a tall man with black hair and a gray suit came up to us with a smile. "Miss Phillips," he said, already knowing who I was.

"Yes?" I asked, looking at him, intrigued. He was polished, refined, more than most people that collected us. His 5 o'clock stubble was clear on his face but somehow he pulled it off without any effort. He looked to be around his mid 30's but the way he walked, showed me that he had more experience than years.

"I'm going to be your driver, my name's Fabien. If you would just follow me, I'll take you to the car," he said with a polite smile.

I nodded. "Alright," I said following him and Toby.

When we got into the car, Fabian said, "we're having real problems with the communications so I'll just drop you off at the base then I'll drop off your bags in your hotel rooms."

"That's fine with us," Toby spoke up as Fabian drove through the city streets.

Minutes passed in silence until Fabian stopped in front of a building with few windows. "Here we are," he said as we got out of the car.

"Thank you," I said kindly and with that, we walked into the base.

We looked around the empty floor and frowned. It was too silent here. Something wasn't right.

"Phillips," an older man said, breaking me from my thoughts. He came up to us with a smile that I easily returned to him. I hadn't seen him in two years and that was far too long. Time had not been good to him, his full head of hair was now thinning and his gray eyes had bags.

"General Smith, how are you," I said and shook his hand, as I resisted the urge to hug him in a public setting. I've known General Smith for about 14 years; he and my dad were the best of friends and when my father died, he took the role as cool uncle. Even though he wasn't family by blood, he felt like family.

He frowned. "I've been better," he said looking around the building as if he could see something that I couldn't.

"What do you want us to do sir?" Toby asked and shook his hand.

"I heard that you are good with 'basement testing'," he said to Toby.

We all knew that was code word for sending privet messages with beeps, it was used in world war 2 and now only a small amount of people know how to do it, Toby being one of them. When all else fails we always go back to 'Basement testing' because that never failed us.

"Yeah, I know it," Toby said with a shrugged, trying to be modest. But I could see the pride in his eyes.

"Annalise, can you help out with the main commuter on each floor? They all seem to be jammed and I know you are fantastic at unclogging computers," General Smith asked.

I nodded. I hadn't done that kind of work in years but I didn't have the heart to tell him no. "Yeah, I'll do that," I said and went straight up to the second floor. There, everyone was too busy to notice me. Once again, I was invisible so I decided to yell until someone saw me. "Where's the main PC on your floor?"

"Right over here," a middle aged woman said from her desk pointing to the computer beside her. With that, she went back to typing like nothing happened.

I sat down in front of it and started to type, only to find out that the computer was frozen. The more I typed the more I realized that the reason it was frozen was because it was infected with a virus. But that was what I couldn't understand. This was one of the most secure places in the world. How and why did they do this?

I let out a sigh after working on it for 10 minutes. I've never seen a computer so infected. I hit the computer in frustration, hoping that would fix my problems. I frowned when it didn't. After about a hour more of me typing and overriding the system, I finally got the computer cleared.

I smiled, happy with my work. I stood up and felt my back pop. Now, only two more to go, I just hoped that it didn't take another hour to fix each of them.

When I got to the next computer, I was shocked to see that this computer was likely infected with the same malware. But this time, knowing what to look for, it only took me 40 minutes to fix. As I dug into the hard drive to undo the jam, I saw something that I probably shouldn't have.

In able to tear my eyes away from the code, I dug even deeper into it. With a frown glued to my face, I understood that someone jammed the computer with a purpose. No random person could just walk in and do this.

As I typed away, I knew that it wasn't Russian, but from the CIA. It was a nasty one at that, eating away at the computer from the inside, tearing apart the files and data like pieces of paper. I didn't understand who would do something like this and how they could get away with it.

Three hours passed and I was able to unjam the other computers. But as I dug into them, I couldn't find any more information on the bug. All I knew was that it was CIA. My first guess was that it looked like someone wanted to damage the CIA, but how much damage did they want to do?

Seeing this as my opportunity to shine, I knew I had to take it. If I got to the bottom of this bug, people would stop talking about me behind my back. I would be the new rising star, someone Gram would be proud of. This was exactly the break I needed.